Nanny State Comes to China

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It appears the citizens of an anti-democratic China have stood up to government authorities who are suggesting smoke free restaurants in preparation for this year’s Summer Olympics. The Beijing Disease Control and Prevention Center urged restaurants in the Chinese capital to completely ban smoking on their premises. While the smoking ban is only a suggestion, the article declares not a single restaurant has taken up the suggestion in the city of Beijing.

Even though the United States has fewer smokers by far, maybe we can send them some of our own big government anti-smoking officials to assist them in banning smoking in restaurants and bars. After all, they have been quite successful in our own country of squashing the rights of proprietors to make their own decisions about their business.

It looks like the first mistake of the Chinese government officials was in offering a mere suggestion to city eateries. The government’s tactic clearly lacked language that exudes a self-righteous and a morally superior tone. Language that assumes to know what is best for our own interest, over the interest of businesses owners to choose what is appropriate for their customers. Chinese bureaucrats have much to learn from freedom squelchers in our own country.

The attempt to diminish smoking in Beijing facilities is part of a larger public relations effort to spruce up the Chinese image across the world. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to say much for the current state of Western values when the Chinese government feels smoking is the biggest negative image maker in a country marked with notorious human rights abuses.

Whatever your personal opinion about smoking in public, I’ve always felt business owners should be able to make up their own rules about smoking in their facility. Apparently even the authoritarian government in China agrees, because after all, it was only a suggestion.

Ray Nothstine is editor at the Civitas Institute in Raleigh, North Carolina. Previously, he was managing editor of Acton Institute's Religion & Liberty quarterly. In 2005 Ray graduated with a Master of Divinity (M.Div) degree from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky. He also holds a B.A. in Political Science from The University of Mississippi in Oxford.